Often, a company has an employee lunchroom, staff lounge or a similar area in the workplace. A not uncommon problem is that some employees leave behind dirty cups or other types of mess on a table or in the sink.

Enter behavioural psychology.

As a fun experiment, a small Toronto office has given each of its employees a free coffee mug with one of their business portrait outtakes on it.

The plan is that since each person now has their own coffee mug with their face on it, they’ll be motivated to clean up after themselves and won’t leave behind a dirty cup. However, should an employee leave a mess, since their face is on the mug, everyone in the office will immediately know who the culprit is.

The employees may think they got a free coffee mug but they really got entered into a science experiment.

The CCPA released this year’s survey results (based on 2010 numbers). Canada’s top CEOs now earn the equivalent of the average annual Canadian income even sooner.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ annual look at CEO compensation reveals that by 12:00 noon on January 3rd, the first official working day of the year, Canada’s Elite 100 CEOs (the 100 highest paid CEOs of companies listed in the TSX Index) will have already pocketed $44,366. It takes the Average Joe an entire year, working full-time, to earn that same amount.

This represents a 27% pay increase from the previous year. The average Canadian received a 1.1% increase.

The CCPA has a depressing pay clock here.

Here’s my list for this Christmas. Please read it carefully so you don’t mix it up like you did last year:

• Less stress and more success.
• More spare time and less spare tire.
• Less grey hair and more grey matter.
• Big bank account and small credit card bills.
• Pay rates go up and camera prices go down.
• An idle vacation and a busy vocation.
• Large photo budgets and small copyright demands.
• Faster computer and slower deadlines.

I’ll be leaving some gluten-free, sugar-free, fat-free, nut-free, taste-free cookies on the front table along with a glass of soy milk. If things go well this year, I’m sure we’ll see the return of the frosted double fudge chocolate chip brownies and the grande caffé mocha with extra whipped cream.

It’s a safe bet that anyone who declares themselves to be an “expert”, “evangelist”, “guru”, “life coach” or even “ambassador”, probably isn’t.

The words “analyst”, “strategist” and “specialist” could likely be replaced by “clerk” or “office worker”.

What exactly do the titles “innovator” and “visionary” mean? One might wonder if “self-employed” is somehow related to “self-important”.

There’s a difference between blowing your own horn and blowing hot air. We all know that any business that uses words such as “best”, “honest”, “qualified” or “high quality” in its slogan is probably fooling only themselves.

Perhaps commercial photographers and corporate photographers should use a title such as:

Visual Communications Strategist

Chief Imaging Officer

Visual Opportunity Research Analyst

Pixel Control Specialist

Visual Innovator

Photon Optimization Engineer

Digital Light Technician

Optical Solutions Developer

Creative Communications Visionary

Principal Visualization Wizard

Titles are used to create certain expectation. But the only title that matters is the one that a customer gives to the business.

For a self-employed photographer, this title will ideally be along the lines of, “Wow, what a great photographer you are!”

Self-invented titles are just words on a business card. But earned titles are memorable, especially to the customer.

There’s at least one commercial photographer here in Toronto whose web site uses cheap, stock pictures taken from other web sites. In a slideshow to showcase their “talent”, none of the pictures were shot by the photographer. (Through the magic of the Web, stock pictures are easily traceable back to their sources.)

If a photographer has to use someone else’s pictures, what does that say about their own work?

Not only does this make the photographer look bad, but one might wonder if it’s legal. Ontario’s Consumer Protection Act (14(2) s.3, 8, 14) seems to suggest it isn’t.

Using stock pictures in place of real corporate photography or other custom business photography always costs too much. It can harm a company’s reputation and even land the business on the wrong side of consumer laws.

“We used stock pictures to save a few dollars,” is not a legal defense.